Apr. 1, 1918 



Basal Katabolism of Cattle and Other Species 



47 



8000 



KATABOLISM PER UNIT OF SURFACE 



Since, however, as appears from the foregoing comparisons, the body 

 surface affords at least as satisfactory a reference unit as body weight, 

 it seems desirable to follow 

 the usual practice and com- 

 pute the basal katabolism 

 per unit of body surface. 

 Such computations have 

 generally been made by 

 means of the formula pro- 

 posed by Meeh {15) — viz, 5 7000 

 5 ^ ^ pyf in which 5 equals § 



the body surface in square g eooo 

 centimeters, W the body § 

 weight in grams and k a 

 constant for the same spe. 

 cies. Trowbridge, Moulton, 

 and Haigh (19) have re- 

 ported the weights and 

 body surfaces of 35 beef 

 steers and have computed 

 the value of k for differ- 

 ent classes of beef cattle. 

 Moulton (77) has discussed 

 the data further and has 

 proposed for beef cattle the 



5000 



3000 



2000 



100 200 300 400 50f> 



LIVE WEIGHT(KiL0QaAM5) 

 Fig. 2.— Graph of the basal katabolism of cattle per 12 hours' 

 lying and 12 hours' standing. 



following modifications of Meeh's formula, which he regards as more 

 accurate, in which W equals the empty weight in kilograms and 5 the 

 body surface in square meters. 



For cattle in thin or medium condition S=o. 1186 W « 



For fat cattle S=o. 158 ^ W^' 



Applying these formulas to the data of Table I, estimating the empty 

 weight at 89 per cent of the live weight in the unf attened animals and 92 

 per cent in the full-fed steer C and in steer J, gives the results for the 

 basal katabolism per square meter of surface shown in Table III. For 

 steers C and J the formula for fat cattle has been employed. 



The results upon steer J in experiment 217, periods 3 and 4, having 

 been omitted as before, the frequency distribution of the remaining 27 

 results is shown in figures 4, 5, and 6. While the smoothed graphs show 

 more or less divergence from the probability curve, especially for the 

 results per 24 hours' standing, nevertheless, in view of the rather small 

 number of observations, it would seem that the distribution may be 

 regarded as fairly normal, at least in the two other cases. Assuming this, 



' Erroneously printed as 0.134 in Moulton (z/). 



41811°— 18- 



